Make Your Research Visit Count
Practical, evidence-informed tools for researchers, visiting scholars, hosts and universities.
A research visit can open doors to new ideas, methods, people, facilities and collaborations. But simply spending time at another institution does not guarantee a successful visit. Good research visits are designed.
This resource helps researchers and universities make better decisions before a visit, prepare effectively, make the most of the time away, and turn a temporary visit into lasting research value.
Start Here
Select your role to access tailored frameworks, checklists, and timelines.
I am a Researcher
Visiting scholar, PhD, postdoc, or faculty member
Planning a visit, preparing to leave, currently visiting, or returning home. Protect your time, build meaningful intellectual relationships, and ensure institutional readiness from Day 1.
I am Hosting a Researcher
Principal investigator, lab director, department chair
Preparing to welcome a visiting researcher to your department. Hosting does not require constant supervision, but well-timed attention and early introductions make all the difference.
I Work for a University
Dean, research office, global engagement, funders
Sending, funding, approving or supporting research visits. Move beyond raw mobility headcounts to strategic value, low bureaucracy, and measurable scholarly continuation.
Before You Commit, Ask Seven Questions
A research visit may involve months of a researcher’s time and substantial personal and institutional resources. Before committing, take two minutes to check whether the visit is really designed to succeed.
For Researchers
“Should I Take This Research Visit?”
Evaluates unique academic necessity, host commitment, day-one access, timing, and post-visit continuation.
For Sending Universities
“Should We Send This Researcher?”
Prevents wasting institutional funding on ill-defined trips and validates that unique intellectual returns will return home.
For Host Universities
“Should We Host This Researcher?”
Confirms supervisory capacity, workspace readiness, intellectual alignment, and departmental value proposition.
What Makes a Research Visit Successful?
There is no single formula. A three-week archival visit, a six-month laboratory placement and a year-long visiting fellowship have very different needs.
Yet across humanities, social sciences, medicine, and engineering, successful visits consistently attend to eight fundamental anchors:
Don’t Just Fund Mobility. Make It Work.
This resource is being developed through the Visiting Researcher Success Framework (VRSF), an initiative studying how research visits can be better designed, supported and evaluated. Our tools are designed to be practical, low-burden and freely usable.
A research visit should not be judged by the fact that it happened, but by what happened because of it.